Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Xbox One):
Great game. Great bosses, fun movement, simple but
deep enough combat, big map with all kinds different locations and challenges -- combat, platforming, puzzles, puzzle platforming (think Speed Booster rooms in Metroid games). Before game released they spent a lot promoting game's in-game screenshot system which is probably the first to be used in metroidvania, but i remembered screenshots placed on a map in Assassin's Creed or even in some of the Wii U games. But it's more useful here to remember marked places to explore later, just so you can easier understand what to do visually.
I found had to put some abilities from triggers to other buttons so i can press them in quicker succession for some of the puzzles (triggers on mine Xbox controller got somewhat sticky). Also, neutral dodge off the wall when main character jumps off the wall when you just press dodge button without direction was kinda annoying especially during challenges like
Impossible Climb when you had to spend a lot of time hanging on a wall.
Some of the rooms and locations looked fantastic with great backgrounds:
Map design also has cohesive design that intuitively shows the player that there is a checkpoint or a map selling NPC nearby. At first, I never bought any of the maps and explored by myself, but for 100% had to go for a map sweep to look for map sellers all over again. Usually i was only missing one of two treasures on each segments of the map hidden behind fake walls. The only puzzle room i couldn't figure out and had to look up was
2 crushing blocks in Eternal Sands and it was kinda BS -- i spent more than an hour trying all kinds of abilities in this room trying to stop the blocks -- occasionally even glitching the game but the solution was that i needed to bring an enemy from literally across the map. I guess i should have got the hint from the background.
Speaking of glitches -- when fighting a boss, i somehow got warped outside of the arena and game just gave me an achievement for beating it. Because the boss was so cool -- i had to reload from latest checkpoint to redo the boss proper -- regretted it a bit because the boss was actually really tough -- still very fun.
There were also some minor bugs like showing me loot i have already picked up like i didn't, but nothing major or preventing me from 100%-ing the file. My game is now at 99% and the last thing i need to do is to upgrade some of my amulets to full levels but i kinda ran out of crystals currency and don't feel like grinding -- probably would only take me 10 minutes or so, but don't care enough for now. Maybe later, if Ubisoft releases story DLC or something...
Overall, a really great game -- highly recommended.
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